4 replies to this topic

[superjman]

Earlier I was talking to a couple of gents in the chat and came up with an idea. For this idea I will put a small LED in an inner chamber of a nest and turn it on every so often to record video. I don't want to disturb the nest very much when I do so. So with that said I want to ask, what kind of light (color, intensity, and so on) would disturb the ants the least? I have read that dark shades of red don't really both some species but I was wondering if anyone had any insight on what kind of light would be the best for this?

[Nathant2131]

I wonder who these "couple of gents" are. 

[Kevin]

In my opinion, lighting up a formicaria with a LED is not practical. There are so many features in the formicaria, tunnels, chambers, etc that the shadows produced by the LED would be worse than viewing in the daylight for a light from the front of the formicaria. The only way of making this idea worth your time is to do something like terry did, a light screen "diffuser" or whatever terms he used, so the entire back of the formicaria would be lit up.

[superjman]

Well the basis of it Kevin is that it's a central chamber that has no light in it other than when I'm recording inside of it. It'll have access to the outer tunnels but other than that it won't have any windows into it and a camera on the inside. I want the inside to be as dark as it can be at all other times so as not to disturb the ants inside and when I do turn on the lights I want them to bother the ants as little as possible.

[T.C.]

Well I am currently working on designing and building a formicarium with light up ant tunnels. The points Kevin pointed out and many more over all are making it very challenging. There is a lot of things you have to take into consideration. Not to mention the issues I keep running into. I have no idea how well my idea is going to work, but so far it's been a little rough. I should be able to get it done if I take my time. I have been planning it out and sketching my ideas for quite some time now. Anyways here is the thread where I am posting the finished product and how i am building it. I got knocked out and hurt myself last night so things are going a little slower now. ( I won't even say what I was doing. ) But in 2 weeks I should have it finished.

 

http://www.formicult...-builds-thread/